June’s hot topics

Notes, more notes and a few comments while wondering how many autographs Bill Self signs annually. …

If you’re counting, Memorial Stadium will be receiving its fifth rug this summer. Back in 1970, Kansas University was in the collegiate vanguard when athletic director Wade Stinson plunked down about $240,000 to install Tartan Turf on its football field.

KU switched to AstroTurf in 1978, replaced that ersatz grass with more of the same in 1990, switched to AstroPlay in 2000 and is now opting for FieldTurf. Thus, the average shelf life of the rugs at Memorial Stadium has been 91⁄2 years.

Incidentally, KU officials almost went back to grass prior to the 2000 changeover, but technological innovations — notably the infusion of rubber granules to soften impacts — shifted their priority back to chemical carpets. …

Since the June baseball draft began in the mid-1960s, Lee Stevens is the only Lawrence high school product who has ever been selected in the first round. Stevens, a first baseman-outfielder, went to the Angels with the 22nd pick. Over the same span, only one former KU player has been a first-rounder. Can you name him? Answer later.

That’s not a typo in the University of Texas football schedule. The Longhorns really are playing at Wyoming on Sept. 12 as part of one of those increasingly popular two-for-one deals. For its trip to Laramie, Wyo., Texas will receive visits to Austin, Texas, from the Cowboys in 2010 and 2012. …

You may remember Kansas played at Wyoming back in 2003. The crowd count? A whopping 18,329. But UW officials are expecting a sellout when UT visits the Cowboys’ 30,514-seat War Memorial Stadium this fall. …

And how about Iowa State? The Cyclones will be playing at Kent State this fall. That’s significant because Kent State ranked dead last in Football Championship Subdivision attendance last season by averaging only a little more than 10,000 fans a game. …

Royals general manager Dayton Moore has declared his struggling team has no need for major changes, that the club has no problems that can’t be fixed if the current players begin to “perform at their accustomed level.” Uh, just what is their accustomed level? And who’s to say they aren’t performing at that level now? …

Remember back in 2002 when to heighten awareness of the Kansas-Missouri sports rivalry some corporate types came up with the Border War promotion, later watered down to the Border Showdown? That competition still exists, although you haven’t heard much about it lately — probably because Missouri has won five of the seven annual compilations, including the last three. …

Roger Slagle, a slender 6-foot-3 Kansas University right-handed pitcher from Larned, went to the New York Yankees with the 19th pick in the secondary phase of the 1976 draft. Slagle appeared in one major-league game, hurling two innings in relief as a September call-up by the Yankees in 1979. …

Now that the NBA Finals are under way, I’m sure you’re aware that the last game of the college basketball season was played more than nine weeks ago. …